Shocked and Ashamed

Dear Andy

During our ‘Refugee Tales’ walk together on Saturday, we discussed the question ‘what is the impact of immigration detention,’ including the barbaric current use of indefinite immigration detention. Our focus was, of course, first and foremost imagining the impact upon those many people we have come to know through Refugee Tales who have experienced immigration detention, or even the threat of it, at the hands of our own nation’s government.

But, perhaps for the first time since our involvement, we also considered the impact on both of us, as British-born citizens of a country whose claims of support for the democratic values of fairness, the rule of law, and upholding of human rights - imperfect though we recognised them to be – we had once wholeheartedly bought into and believed in.

I reminded you of my initial disbelief – followed by how shocked and ashamed I was as I came to accept the truth of it – when you first told me the reasons why you were planning to walk with Refugee Tales, from Dover to Gatwick that year: to draw attention to and demonstrate solidarity with those who were subject to our country’s policy of indefinite immigration detention of asylum-seekers and refugees.

 • I was shocked and ashamed to learn that our own government locked people up indefinitely and with no judicial oversight of the decision to do so – just like the worst despotic regimes in the world, and the only one in the whole of Europe to do so;

 • I was shocked and ashamed that I hadn’t known this before – and to watch as our friends and family members went through that same process of disbelief, shock and shame, as they, too, came to learn the truth of it;

 • I was shocked and ashamed when I first met a young man, whose own life had been one of slavery, abuse and trafficking, who had spent a total of 9 years in detention, for his only ‘crime’ of seeking sanctuary here;

 • I was shocked and ashamed to hear stories from ex-detainees and visitors of the abusive treatment too frequently meted out to already traumatised people inside those immigration removal centres – the kind of abusive treatment (often in reality more, and more relentlessly, dehumanising than even those televised events) exposed by the Panorama programme which is the subject of the current Public Enquiry;

 • I was shocked and ashamed to realise that private companies are making profits out of all the human misery and waste of human life (not to mention taxpayers’ money) which immigration detention brings.

I still remain shocked and ashamed that our country – which often claims to have such a ‘proud history’ of providing welcome to those fleeing conflict and persecution (how hollow those words!) – continues to inflict so much additional suffering on those seeking safety and sanctuary here.

Barbara

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Dear Barbara

Yes, I too was shocked and ashamed – and remain so – when I first started to learn in early 2015 about the conditions of refugees and seekers of asylum in the UK, and decided to join the Refugee Tales community. I’ve been active in supporting their work, in particular their annual walks, ever since.

Some of the aspects that concern me significantly are:

 • the lack of judicial oversight, and difficulties of getting access to legal representation, including problems of losing legal representation after arbitrary moving around to different IRCs at random;

 • the financial costs of detention – imagine if only a half of the £45,000 per person per year could be given instead as a ‘wage’ for asylum-seekers and refugees (not to mention to unemployed people more generally) to support and look after themselves;

 • the painfully and inhumanely slow, cumbersome and opaque Home Office processes to hear or settle asylum claims;

 • the arbitrary nature of dawn-raids, removal flights, etc.;

 • the human effects on mental and physical health for people just wanting to settle down into the safety of family life and make a contribution to our society.

I think it’s maybe this last point that bothers me the most about indefinite detention. I think I’ve come to understand a lot better recently the way detention destroys a person mentally: depression; low self-esteem; continuous stress; fear; poor physical health generally; and lack of professional support to overcome the trauma that led people to seek asylum in this country in the first place.

I believe these factors continue or even become worse after detention. The conditions of a person’s bail can effectively be the same as actually being in detention; there is a continuous fear of re-detention; there is still no freedom and no opportunity to work; there are often significant language barriers in everyday life, particularly when trying to access welfare services. In short, little changes – the trauma continues.

Although I have no first-hand experience of visiting people in detention, I have spent lots of time talking with others in Refugee Tales who have, as well as with people who have been in detention – sometimes for several years. Feedback from all of them contributes to my feelings of being shocked and ashamed. I shall continue to do all I can to support the campaign to bring an end to indefinite immigration detention.

Andy